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Warrior abilities
Warrior abilities typically revolve around their rage bar. With Mists of Pandaria, ability availability is no longer governed by stances. Mists of Pandaria For talent-granted abilities, see Warrior talents. Overall abilities Arms abilities Fury abilities Protection abilities Pre-Mists of Pandaria The abilities listed below specify which stances can use which abilities. Also see more warrior tactics. Stances Many abilities can only be used in a certain stance. The warrior always has one stance active at a time. Switching between stances causes rage loss. Trainable Abilities These abilities are available to learn for all Warriors at the appropriate level, regardless of Talents. But some are only available to use in certain stances or situations. Talent Granted Abilities Arms Fury Protection Abilities by type Aggro management Aggro control is a key part of being a Warrior, and abilities to aid this come in two types: Threat Many Warrior abilities, in addition to their stated purpose, cause various amounts of threat, an underlying in-game statistic which is used by enemies to determine which party member they will attack. In group work, the tanking Warrior is different in that they actually want to cause as much threat as possible. Warriors engaged in high damage output, on the other hand, want to avoid causing too much threat. High Threat: Sunder Armor, Heroic Strike, Shield Slam, Devastate, Revenge, Thunder Clap Low Threat: Slam, Rend, Hamstring, et al. Good threat management is tricky, but essential for instance work as a Warrior. Without managing threat, one can pull the mob off the tank if you are DPSing, or lose aggro on the mob if tanking. Taunt In addition to threat specials, the Warrior has several temporary instant aggro abilities: Taunt forces a target to attack you for a time. Challenging Shout has the same effect on all enemies in range. It is important to note that Challenging Shout causes little threat itself, and the enemy will return to its original target when it expires unless new threat is generated using other abilities. Taunt works differently by generating just enough threat to place the Warrior at the top of the enemy's hate list, making it much easier to prevent the enemy from switching back to its original target so long as additional threat generating abilities are used. Note that currently none of the Taunt type abilities work in PvP, and Blizzard has stated that these abilities will not work on non-aggressive pets, guardians, and minions. If set on Aggressive by the opposing player, these combat companions can be taunted. This is unlike the Rogue's which works just fine even on non-aggressive combat companions. In addition, Intimidating Shout fears everything in its radius that isn't the target. This can be quite dangerous, but can also buy time for a hasty escape or avoid taking on more than one enemy at a time. The target will cower in fear, immobilized for the duration of the shout, but will be freed upon taking any damage. That is, if you intend to use the ability to escape combat, you should remember to stop attacking the moment before you activate it to prevent disrupting the effect. See Tanking Counterattacks Warriors gain access to certain counterattacks, namely Overpower and Revenge. This requires you to be quick to react. Damage over Time Warriors have access to a nice DoT ability, Rend. This DoT should, as all DoTs, be applied in combats where the DoT will have time to work. Buffs Warriors have two long duration buffs, although they last only two minutes (three if correctly talented). Battle Shout increases attack power and Commanding Shout increases maximum health, and both of these apply to everyone in the warrior's group inside 30 yards. These buffs require rage, and since warriors don't generate rage out of combat, they cannot prepare it before fights (except if he uses Bloodrage). Although they have a limited amount of long term buffs compared to priests and druids, they can also gain very strong short timed buffs such as Flurry, which increases attack speed by 25% score each time the warrior scores a critical strike (fury talent) or Enrage, which increases all damage done by the warrior by 25%, activates when the warrior receives a critical strike (fury talent). All those small buffs lasts under 15 seconds, but makes the warrior a very powerful character in combat. Debuffs Warriors have access to quite a few debuffs, everything from enemy attack-speed reduction (Thunder Clap), attack power reduction (Demoralizing Shout, Disarm) and movement speed reduction (Hamstring) to spell interruption (Shield Bash, Pummel) and armor reduction (Sunder Armor). In addition, Charge and Intercept could also be considered debuffs, since they stun the enemy. Direct Damage Warriors deal direct damage with Cleave, Execute, Heroic Strike, Intercept, Shield Slam and Slam. Protection Warriors can protect themselves or others with Shield Wall, Shield Block, Last Stand, Concussion Blow, and Intervene. Shouts Shouts generally buff or debuff multiple targets. Because of this, shouts should be used frequently but judiciously. Timing Certain Warrior abilities require the player to use them within a given window of opportunity. This means that extra attention needs to be paid to the hotbar, and the enemy's actions. These fall into two types: Reactions These hotkeys will light up when a certain condition has been met. The Warrior then has a second or two to use the ability, or it will go dark and the moment has been lost. It is worth using them whenever possible, as they either do a lot of damage, or use much less Rage than a normal attack. Overpower - After a target Dodges. Revenge - After a self Dodge, Block or Parry. Execute - When target's remaining health is below 20%. (The Revenge condition can be forced by using Shield Block beforehand. This will almost guarantee a self Block on the next enemy attack, and light up Revenge.) Interrupts These hotkeys are available whenever the Warrior has sufficient Rage, but are best kept for certain situations, as they will interrupt the enemy's spells. This takes some practice to get right, but can massively reduce the effort it takes to kill the enemy, either by preventing incoming damage, or stopping them healing themselves or allies. Shield Bash - Use when enemy caster begins casting. Pummel - As Shield Bash. The casting charge-up noise and glowing hands effect used to be difficult to describe, but now there is an interface option to show an enemies casting bar, and the ability to silence or interrupt right before channeling completes. Reflection Spell Reflection - Used to reflect an enemy spell back on themselves. As for interrupts this is best kept for certain situations - eg when a high damage or Crowd Control spell is being cast on you. Category:Warrior abilities